[Marxism] Camejo and the SWP

["Dayne Goodwin" <daynegoodwin@xxxxxxxxx>]

I am one of those activists fortunate to have known and worked with Peter
Camejo.  He is certainly one of the outstanding revolutionary activists of
the last 40 years in the U.S.

The person who recruited me to the Young Socialist Alliance in Utah in
1968-69 had politically grown up in the California bay area where Peter
Camejo had impressed and influenced him greatly.  I met and heard Peter
speak at my first national SWP conference at Oberlin College near Cleveland
Ohio in 1970.  Peter was one of the half-dozen SWP leaders of the younger
generation who were the featured speakers (one each evening) on key topics
at plenary sessions at Finney Chapel.

Other than organizing a campaign rally for Peter's SWP presidential campaign
and getting to introduce him to a hundred people in Salt Lake City in summer
1976 i wasn't someone who Peter was generally aware of or ever worked with.
I only got to know Peter a little after we were both out of the SWP in the
1980s.

In 1983 we had created a Central America Solidarity Coalition (CASC) in Salt
Lake.   In late 1983 i was trying to think of possible speakers for our
second conference.  I had heard that Peter was living in the California bay
area again.  I gave it a try and succeeded in getting in touch by telephone
through directory assistance.

Peter and Gustavo Acosta of CISPES came out to our conference together in
February or March of 1984 and stayed for a few extra days.  Peter gave me
the bulk of one day and good part of another to discuss everything i had
wanted to know about his experiences, what had happened within the SWP.
Peter also met with about seven or eight of us who had all left or been
expelled from the YSA and/or SWP over the last two years.

Peter had already communicated about and sent materials about the North Star
Network (NSN) that was being created through the process of former SWPers
finding their way to get back in touch with him.  I read his essay "Against
Sectarianism: the evolution of the Socialist Workers Party, 1978-83" which
was a tremendous help in understanding what had happened to the SWP -
developments that had been confusing, demoralizing and disorienting for me.

My original SWP mentor was living in Utah again after many years and he came
to the meeting to learn about North Star Network.  He had recently left the
SWP.  He had participated in the CASC conference where we had proposed a
"March for the Americas" mobilization for that spring.

After Peter told us about NSN, my original mentor said 'Great! let's make a
NSN banner for the march and prepare leaflets explaining why people should
join NSN.'

Peter said 'I don't think that's a good idea.  I think you should just build
the demonstration and the movement and look for opportunities to talk with
young people to help them avoid the mistakes we've made.'

My mentor said 'Well then what good is NSN if we're not going to promote it
and build it?'

Peter answered "North Star Network is primarily a deprogramming center for
victims of the SWP cult."

What i learned from Peter, mainly during that first long visit but also in
occasional meetings over the years, has contributed to my view that Jack
Barnes' fear of Peter Camejo as a competitor for leadership within the
SWP was an important factor in the organizational evolution of the SWP.
When the SWP, like most left organizations in the U.S., had difficulties
adjusting to the changing U.S. political situation in the late 1970s and
early 1980s the organization badly needed open democratic discussion of
'what is happening' and 'what is to be done'.  But the SWP's central
political leader, Jack Barnes, worked against open democratic discussion
because it was a risk to his effort to personally dominate and control the
organization.  Barnes steadily made the SWP into an undemocratic sectarian
cult around his personal leadership.

In the early 1970s when the SWP began dealing with passing the baton of
leadership from the older generation, Peter thought that there were three
younger people who were in the running to get the nod as new central leader:
Jack Barnes, Barry Sheppard and himself.  Peter didn't think that Barnes was
chosen based on revolutionary merit.  Peter felt that he had not been chosen
because of racist concerns among the older central leadership.

The rising revolution in the Caribbean and Central America in the latter
1970s put wind in Peter's sails, accentuating the contrast between public
revolutionary educator/activist and bilingual agitator Camejo and party
bureaucrat Barnes.  I remember the excitement at the 1979 SWP convention
as we eagerly listened to Peter's report from the front lines of the
Nicaraguan and Salvadoran revolutionary struggles.

At the next SWP Convention in 1981 Peter was nowhere to be seen, and no
explanation.  It was in personal conversations that rank-and-file
members were trying to find out "Where's Peter?"  The astounding and
confounding answer we got was that Peter had decided to leave the party and
pursue personal enrichment.

Peter told me that he had taken temporary leave from the party but when he
tried to return he found that Barnes had turned it into a permanent
resignation - and had prepared well to prevent him from returning.  Peter
said he had been surprised by Barnes' move but in retrospect he should have
known better.

Peter said that he found his political disagreements with Barnes deepening
after the 1979 convention and they started to become openly manifest in
issues dealt with in branch discussions in the New York City area in
1980/81.  Peter said that Barnes had been able to influence the composition
and attitudes of the the party's top leadership body, the political
committee, until the large majority was a Barnes' clique.  They lived in the
same apartment building and hung out together almost nightly.  When the
political committee met, the Barnes' clique majority had already decided
everything on the agenda.

Peter said that at one political committee meeting he proposed that the
committee be reduced in size to the exact number of the Barnes' clique.
Barnes was enraged, apopleptic.  In retrospect, Peter thought that was when
Barnes probably determined to get him out of the SWP.  I think that Peter
Camejo was the first victim of the Barnes' purge that peaked numerically in
1983-84.

I'm interested to read what Peter has written of these experiences in his
memoir.  I'm also looking forward to reading Barry Sheppard's comments on
these developments in volume two of his political memoir.

Dayne
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